


No Angel

by Badwolf36



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angel/Human Relationships, Guardian Angels, M/M, Saints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badwolf36/pseuds/Badwolf36
Summary: “You’re no angel, Jim.”Jim laughs too, but the sound is all wrong. And then he looks off to the side and rubs the back of his neck in that sheepish way that sets alarm bells ringing in Leonard’s head.“Yeah, see, the thing is…I’m not lying, Bones. I really am an angel. Your angel, in fact.”
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	No Angel

**Author's Note:**

> This is another one-shot from the archives that I went back and finished. It was based off this old photo prompt: https://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/342825.html
> 
> If the prompt link doesn't work for you, here are the photos in question.  
> https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5048/5379593659_ae2b1e0673.jpg  
> https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5243/5380072862_b3058a7cd2.jpg

“I’m an angel, Bones.”

They’re sitting in Leonard’s living room with its stark white walls. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but they’ve already been drinking for a couple of hours, celebrating Leonard’s promotion at the hospital.

Leonard laughs and slaps a hand across the back of Jim’s shoulder from his place on the sofa. Jim, curled up on the loveseat behind him, doesn’t even flinch at the blow.

“You’re no angel, Jim.”

Jim laughs too, but the sound is all wrong. And then he looks off to the side and rubs the back of his neck in that sheepish way that sets alarm bells ringing in Leonard’s head.

“Yeah, see, the thing is…I’m not lying, Bones. I really am an angel. Your angel, in fact.”

Leonard concentrates on the little golden pilot insignia on Jim’s dark gray shirt, managing to ignore the lure of Jim’s chest peeking so freely through the open shirt buttons.

“Your tattoos,” Leonard says in sudden realization and Jim beams at him like he’s a med student who’s just figured out a particularly tricky diagnosis. Jim has two large wings tattooed in black across his shoulder blades and down his back. He’s never explained them, even when Leonard has asked, although he always really likes it when Leonard strokes his hands down the black whorls and lines that make up the pattern as they move together.

“Not just for decoration,” Jim says brightly. “Although my real wings would pretty much take over your whole apartment. We really do need to get a new place now that you can keep us in style.”

Leonard blinks slowly, trying to get over the way Jim’s running roughshod over this conversation. He’s pretty sure he won’t succeed since that’s pretty much how his life’s been since he met Jim Kirk: a wild ride he can’t really convince himself he’s not having fun on, no matter how much he complains.

“You have wings,” he says dumbly, and Jim gives him an encouraging smile.

“Comes with the territory. And flying on my own is so much better than my job, but hey, pays the bills, right?”

Jim’s been running charter flights over San Francisco the entire time Leonard’s known him. It’s actually how they met. Leonard had been dragged onto the plane by some of his new colleagues who really wanted to show him San Francisco from above, never mind his protests about aviophobia.

He’d spent the entire trip cursing over the headphone mic while the pilot, with his sky blue eyes, had laughed and shoved Leonard’s head between his knees, producing an airsick bag from thin air and telling Leonard he probably wouldn’t need it if he’d just lighten up a little.

He’d needed it, but after they landed and his very sorry colleagues had stumbled away from the small plane, Leonard had gotten a pat on the back, a new nickname, and the pilot’s phone number for all his troubles.

“You said my angel. Like, my guardian angel?”

“Something like that,” Jim says, setting down his beer bottle before gripping his elbow with his opposite hand and looking out the window. Leonard takes the moment to study him. Somehow, the knowledge doesn’t make Jim seem any different, for all that it’s changed his entire worldview. He wonders at himself, the fact that he’s taking this so well, but Jim has always seemed a little _odd_ (albeit in a good way).

“But…” Leonard says, choking the sentence off before he can ask. But Jim, who has always been able to see right through Leonard (and maybe there was something special to that talent) seems to know what he’s asking anyway. He gives Leonard a sympathetic look.

“But why haven’t I guarded you from some of the worst moments of your life, right? Your dad, the divorce, losing custody of Joanna?”

Leonard nods, shaken at how much it _hurts_ to have Jim list out some of his biggest life failures like that. He knows Jim couldn’t have protected him from those things, but he’d at least been by Leonard’s side as he worked out how he’d felt about them.

Jim sighs.

“People get pretty mixed up on what angels are allowed to do when it comes to humans. And you’re…” He looks up then, piercing Leonard with that crystal-blue gaze. “You’re special, Leonard McCoy. To me. And it hurt that I couldn’t protect you from those things. But you wouldn’t be you without them, and I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

He pauses for breath and then adds, almost as an afterthought, “And I’m here now.”

Leonard wants to say something to that since they’ve never really articulated anything of the kind, but his mind’s already skipped ahead. He knows some of the lore, vague stuff from church and supernatural stories about how angels had to have a willing and pious host.

“So, who are you, really? What poor kid did you take over so you could follow me around?”

Jim looks defensive at that, although Leonard thinks he has no right to be.

“I didn’t take anyone over Bones. I, uh… _borrowed_ , that’s the word for it, a little clay and shaped myself a body. You seemed the ethical type and I never did like sharing much, even if the person was willing to let me ride around in their body.”

“Huh,” Leonard says, taking a long moment to process that. “I don’t get it.”

“Which part?” Jim asks calmly. He picks up the beer again and Leonard realizes he’s never set down his own glass of bourbon. He presses it to his chest through the open buttons of his short-sleeved white shirt, the shock of the sweating glass doing little to order his thoughts. It does make him think of the time he and Jim played around with ice cubes, Jim tracing a chilly path from Leonard’s suprasternal notch to each of his nipples before heading further south.

It suddenly occurs to him that he’s been having sex with an angel. He giggles a little and tells himself it’s not hysterical. And really, if anyone should be feeling deviant over the fact, that honor would fall to Jim. Seducing a human, really. Completely unfair advantages. He giggles again.

He stops when Jim presses two fingers to the inside of his wrist. It’s a cool pressure and Leonard realizes Jim is taking his pulse. The gesture manages to ground him, and he sucks in a deep breath. Jim gives him a soft smile for the effort.

“You okay?” he asks, and Leonard laughs for real this time.

“Let’s see. My best friend and _lover_ just told me he’s my guardian angel, complete with wings and everything. I think I’m doing pretty well not just running into the street screaming or calling up the funny farm for you, me, or both of us.”

“Point,” Jim concedes.

Leonard takes a deep breath.

“Why?”

Jim tilts his head, for once not getting what he’s aiming at. Leonard clears his throat.

“Why tell me now? Why ever tell me?” A thought occurs to him. “I’m about to die, aren’t I?”

He can’t say he’s okay with the idea, but at least Jim’s there. After the divorce, he’d always figured on kicking off the mortal coil in a back alley somewhere. A depressing thought, but Leonard had never been one for optimism until he met Jim.

Jim looks stricken, but he recovers quickly.

“No!”

“No?”

“No,” Jim says, hands tightening on his beer bottle. Leonard thinks about the warrior angels he’d read about, the righteous fury and the swords. He thinks about Jim’s fencing lessons with Hikaru Sulu, the man who owns the hangar Jim works out of. He wonders how much Jim’s holding back during those lessons. How much he’s holding back, period.

Leonard’s never been particularly religious, but he thinks he should probably change that a little. Maybe. Heavenly invocations shouted in the throes of passion probably don’t count. Then again, it’s not like Jim hasn’t been following the exact same gospel.

“You’ve got to give me more than that, Jim.”

Jim swallows hard, eyes focused on the shifting clouds outside the window.

“I…” he pauses, groping for words as well as breath. Finally, he raises his head to look at Leonard, eyes settling on him with determination. “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.”

“Am I a no-win scenario, Jim?” Leonard presses.

“Not if I can help it,” Jim replies fiercely.

Leonard switches to pleading, “Jim, come on.”

Jim sighs.

“You’re a saint.”

“I’m a _what_?”

Jim smiles at his indignation and the simple gesture sets Leonard at ease.

“A saint,” Jim repeats. “Like Joan of Arc or Saint Luke the Evangelist.”

“Okay,” Leonard says slowly. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means your skill as a doctor isn’t _entirely_ due to study.”

Leonard blinks a few times, struggling to absorb that.

“So, that means…”

Frowning, Jim leans forward and traces an intricate pattern on Leonard’s forehead with his fingertip. He taps it, and Leonard feels vaguely floaty for a moment before the feeling dissipates. It’s only after he resettles himself back in his seat that he speaks again.

“It means I’m here to protect you. It means a storm’s coming and you’re expected to hold back the tide.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. But that’s why you’ve got me.”

“You’re _kidding_.”

“Saint Bones has a nice ring to it?”

“Now you’re just screwing with me.”

“Maybe a little. But not about you being a saint.”

“Huh. Well, I can honestly say this was not how I was expecting to celebrate my promotion.”

“Bones…”

“Maybe some inventive sex or you gifting me some rare bourbon. Not you tellin’ me I’m some dadgum saint!”

“You’re honestly taking this better than I thought you would,” Jim says cheerfully. Bones takes another exceptionally long swig of bourbon to stave off an apoplectic fit.

“So, I’m supposed to save the world?”

“Yup!” Jim says, popping the ‘p.’

More tentatively, “And you’ll be with me?”

Jim’s face goes completely serious, but his love for Leonard is there too, shining through.

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried, Bones.”

Chuckling, Leonard adds, “Like a fungus, you are.”

“Rude.”

“Okay,” Leonard says.

He tosses back the rest of his drink, not even wincing at the burn. He pours himself a fresh glass, several fingers deep, from the bourbon bottle Jim helpfully left on the coffee table. He takes another sip, then fixes Jim with what Jim likes to call his ‘Doctor Diagnostic’ stare.

Leonard’s not prepared for this in any way; he’s not even religious. But if Jim is with him, there’s a chance. He’s certainly done stupider things with James T. Kirk at his side, although staving off some sort of apocalypse is going to be a new one.

“Okay,” he says again. “Saint Bones commands you to tell him everything.”

Jim snickers, smiles, then starts.

**Author's Note:**

> An open ending for this one, so I'll leave what happens next to your imagination. Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
